Family Dollar Stores Inc. (FDO): Today's Featured Retail Loser

Family Dollar Stores ( FDO) pushed the Retail industry lower today making it today's featured Retail loser. The industry as a whole closed the day up 3.1%. By the end of trading, Family Dollar Stores fell 72 cents (-1.1%) to $66.48 on average volume. Throughout the day, 2.4 million shares of Family Dollar Stores exchanged hands as compared to its average daily volume of 1.7 million shares. The stock ranged in price between $65.53-$68.45 after having opened the day at $68.29 as compared to the previous trading day's close of $67.20.

Family Dollar Stores, Inc. operates a chain of self-service retail discount stores primarily for low and middle income consumers in the United States. Family Dollar Stores has a market cap of $8.07 billion and is part of the services sector. The company has a P/E ratio of 20.3, equal to the average retail industry P/E ratio and above the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Shares are up 16.5% year to date as of the close of trading on Thursday. Currently there are seven analysts that rate Family Dollar Stores a buy, one analyst rates it a sell, and 12 rate it a hold.

TheStreet Ratings rates Family Dollar Stores as a buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, solid stock price performance, impressive record of earnings per share growth, increase in net income and notable return on equity. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company is trading at a premium valuation based on our review of its current price compared to such things as earnings and book value.